Objective Subjectivity: Phase 2
Or my quest to discover the Top 100 albums of all time continues
“He can only hold her for so long”
My mom grew up in Detroit in the Sixties. Her formative years were underscored by a soundtrack of Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Martha Reeves, and Smokey Robinson. And being a good mother, she didn’t hesitate to introduce me the anthems of her childhood; I grew up, quite literally, “dancing in the street.”
Years later, I’m sitting with my college housemates in our common room when our friend who always seems to be a step ahead of the next new musical thing rushes in and practically commands us to listen to this song he’s discovered. For the next 3 minutes and 35 seconds, I’m transported to my mother’s home on 8 Mile road, ears glued to the radio, soaking up Barry Gordy’s newest concoction. Except, it’s not Barry, it’s Mark Ronson. And it’s not Martha or Diana or Tammy, it’s Amy.
“Rehab” possessed everything I knew and loved about that classic Motown sound but it was imbued with something more. It may have been birthed in the heart of Detroit but it was raised in Biggie’s Brooklyn and came of age in Wilde’s London. It was sassy, stubborn, deeply sad, glazed with a slick beat, sloppy keys, and soaring horns. It was Motown for today, Motown for me and my generation. There’s pain when we dance in the streets, the tracks of our tears are deep and wide.
I wanted this for an entire album, wanted the inviting sounds of love and celebration and community imbued with brash quips and futile longing and seeping regret. I built up an impossibly high tower of expectation based upon these 3 minutes and 35 seconds of perfection.
Suffice to say, when I picked up my copy of the album that following summer, I was underwhelmed. I found some inklings of that “new Motown,” in its title track and “He Can Only Hold Her,” but the entire album fell short. Even “Tears Dry On Their Own,” its interpolation of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” providing tremendous supporting evidence to my prior claim, couldn’t quite lift the album up out of the sinkhole of unmet expectations.
But then I did this project. It had been some years since I gave it a good listen and this time the album popped. Without the recent history of collegiate discovery and subsequent disappointment, I fully engaged with its 33 snappy minutes and found so much to enjoy: The tightly wound penmanship of “Love is a Losing Game,” the disjointed, unsettling musical path of “Wake Up Alone,” the linguistic thrill of a song using the word “fuckery.” And it made the list.
But now we’re here and I’m back to where I began, the expectation tower higher and more steep. No longer is the battle whether or not I like the album — I do, very much — but whether or not it deserves a spot on my Top 100 albums of all time. And so I listened, multiple times, trying to carve out a space for the late great, but unfortunately, that mountain was a bit too high, that valley a bit too low, and that river a bit too wide.
UPDATE: Perhaps because of my deep shame due to removing Back to Black from the list, I am also now confidently removing Benjamins, The Art of Disappointment. There are currently 117 contenders.
What I listened to last week (in addition to the Top 100 Contender):
Top 100 contenders in bold.
- M.I.A. — Arular
- Chuck D — Autobiography of Mistachuck
- Joni Mitchell — Court and Spark
- The Lemonheads — Creator
- SZA — Ctrl
- Redman — Dare Iz A Darkside
Albums listened to in total: 2,295
Top 100 Contenders: 117
Next week’s album: D’Angelo and The Vanguard — Black Messiah
Think I missed an album? Challenge me! The list is alphabetical by letter.
